Reengaging 'at-risk' youth in secondary education

A psychosocial study suggesting how 'at-risk' youth may reengage in secondary education. There are four outcomes: first, recognize identity work as key to understanding youth; second, progressively include youth in decision making; third, empower youth through collegial dialogue; finally, share creation of and responsibilities for content, process, assessment and evaluation.

Rural youth education and support program: the Casterton experience

Young people's lives have been directly and indirectly affected by the dynamics of decline in rural Australia. In early 1999, the Casterton region experienced the suicides of two young people. These events led to the funding of a rural youth education and support program at the town's secondary college. The program adopts a multi-layered approach to reduce risk factors and strengthen the protective factors amongst students at the college through the enhancement of social connectedness, personal safety and freedom, and educational participation. The program provides interventions at the individual, school and community levels through case management, the delivery of group programs and opportunities for community participation. This approach recognises the importance of early intervention and a holistic approach to health and well-being in the student population. This paper provides an overview and preliminary evaluation of the program undertaken in 2002.

The Resilient Families program: promoting health and wellbeing in adolescents and their parents during the transition to secondary school.

Resilient Families is a school-based prevention program designed to help students and parents develop knowledge, skills and support networks to promote health and wellbeing during the early years of secondary school. the program is designed to build within-family connectedness (parent--adolescent communication, conflict resolution) as well as improve social support between different families, and between families and schools. It is expected to promote social, emotional and academic competence and to prevent health and social problems in youth.

Impact of four foreign aided projects on developments in secondary education in Bangladesh

Examines four foreign aided development projects in the secondary education sub-sector in Bangladesh. Investigates planning and implementation practices employed during the life of the four projects in order to identify factors likely to lead to greater sustainability of development projects financed with foreign aid. A major concern was how foreign aided projects sustain, or lack the means to sustain, developments that have begun when project funding ceases.

Youth literacy development through applied learning and the national curriculum

The introduction of a national curriculum into Australian schools coincides with an increasing body of research emphasising the importance of completing Year 12 or its equivalent if young people are to achieve successful transitions beyond school. This research is reflected in Australian government policy targets to achieve secondary school completion rates to at least 90% by 2015. State governments across the country have also embraced these targets, with some states already achieving above this level thanks to innovative curriculum and pedagogical initiatives that are more attuned to applied ways of learning.

In this chapter we examine the challenges faced by school leaders and teachers as they re-conceptualise approaches to youth literacy development through applied learning pedagogy. We begin by exploring definitions and applications of applied learning and examining the relatively recent growth of applied learning in secondary schools. We discuss the impetus for using applied learning approaches to literacy development and consider the challenges manifest in the day-to-day professional practices of secondary school teachers who use applied learning to engage young people who may otherwise leave school early. We conclude by exploring tensions emerging from the use of applied learning approaches to youth literacy development in Australia and the new demands created by a national curriculum.

Australian pre-service secondary teacher education courses : challenges and Dilemmas

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Queer pedagogies out of place and time: redrawing the boundaries of youth, sexual and gender difference, and education

For this contribution to the "Cartographies" section of the special issue on "Mapping Queer Bioethics," the author focuses on the concept of spatialized time as made material in the location of historical places, in particular as it relates to a reconsideration of approaches to Australian queer/LGBT youth education. Accordingly, the author employs historical maps as illustrative examples of spatialized time, reflecting on the relationships between historical knowledge and queer youth education.

Being there: how teachers of students facing adversity promote positive relationships

While it is said that building positive relationships between students and teachers promotes both student emotional wellbeing and learning, the literature currently provides few clues on how to go about building such relations (and the priorities for action) which are grounded in the research. Interviews and a focus group were used to explore the perspectives of experienced teachers in promoting wellbeing among students facing adversity (i.e. prolonged difficulties and misfortune, such as poverty and issues associated with being a refugee). The results showed that teachers who nurtured relationships with students facing adversity meet considerable challenges. Priority challenges included grappling with unfamiliar student values; facing their own and other staff judgements; boundary issues; schools becoming refuges in communities under strain; and trying to still care when workplace changes appeared to work against positive teacher–student (TS) relationships. The paper concludes that such relationships are a site of tension, contradiction and intensity. Nevertheless, for these teachers, the specific challenges in relationships laid the foundations for meaningful student learning and mental health promotion.

'Girls talking about girls' issues' : the importance of girls-only health and physical education in promoting well-being

Recognition of the important role schools play in the promotion of student well-being can be seen in the growing number of policies and programs being implemented in schools across Australia. This paper reports on some initial data from focus group interviews with Year 9 and 10 girls involved in the pilot of a health and physical activity intervention designed to connect them to their local community and reconnect them with their school and their peers. The aim of the program was to build connectedness and resilience by engaging young women in non-traditional physical activities whilst providing them with a sound understanding of health issues relevant to adolescent girls. Situated in a relatively isolated rural community 200 kilometres south-east of Melbourne the program was overwhelmingly delivered by regional and local agencies in conjunction with the local secondary school. The intervention was built on a partnerships model designed with the purpose of increasing participation and access for young women whilst building a sustainable program run in partnership between the school and local agencies and services. The initial data from this pilot indicates the program is having a positive impact on the young women's sense of self and their bodies, their relationships with their peers and in reducing bullying behaviour amongst the girls. However, the data raises some important questions around the adequacy of school-based health education, and the sustainability of approaches designed to be delivered by outside agencies rather than classroom teachers.

Investigation into the skill levels achieved by mathematics students in the V.C.E. and the H.S.C. mathematics courses

This study examines whether recent changes to the mathematics courses offered in the final year of secondary school (Year 12) in the state of Victoria, Australia have affected the learning outcomes of students in terms of then: skill levels in algebra, calculus and problem solving; and in terms of their preparation for a tertiary mathematics unit. The impact of these changes on the transition from secondary to tertiary mathematics is also considered. A comparison is made between students who attempted a first year mathematics unit at the University of Melbourne (U. of M.) having completed the new V.C.E. (Victorian Certificate of Education) mathematics courses and mathematics courses from the previous H.S.C. (Higher School Certificate) system. The comparison involves the use of tests administered upon entrance to a tertiary mathematics unit at the U. of M., and questionnaires. In 1991, V.C.E, students and H.S.C. students attempted the same mathematics test at the U. of M. and their results were compared. In 1992, the tests were attempted by V.C.E. students only. To compare new V.C.E. students and H.S.C. students, questions on the 1991 test were matched with similar questions on the 1992 tests and a panel of experts determined what the H.S.C. students who attempted the 1991 test would have been expected to average on these matched questions on the 1992 tests had they attempted them. These expected average scores were then compared with the actual scores of the new V.C.E. students. The scores of the groups were scaled when necessary. Questionnaires were administered to 1991 U. of M, mathematics students who were part of the V.C.E. pilot group in 1990, secondary mathematics educators, tertiary mathematics educators, and 1991 V.C.E. (1992 U. of M.) students. The mathematical misconceptions exhibited by new V.C.E. students are discussed and their frequencies stated. The research indicates that the new V.C.E. mathematics courses have provided the V.C.E. mathematics students in this study with significantly lower skill levels and a significantly poorer preparation for a tertiary mathematics unit than those which were previously provided by the H.S.C. mathematics courses.

'no through road'? Disadvantage in rural education

Investigates educational disadvantage for students completing their secondary education in rural schools. For these students rural location has contributed reduced exposure to a broad range of literacy practices, and involvement in student cohorts with lower levels of socio-economic status, less extensive cultural knowledge and lower post-school aspirations.

Narrative structure analysis with education and training videos for e-learning

This paper deals with the problem ofstructuralizing education and training videos for high-level semantics extraction and nonlinear media presentation in e-learning applications. Drawing guidance from production knowledge in instructional media, we propose six main narrative structures employed in education and training videos for both motivation and demonstration during learning and practical training. We devise a powerful audiovisual feature set, accompanied by a hierarchical decision tree-based classification system to determine and discriminate between these structures. Based on a two-liered hierarchical model, we demonstrate that we can achieve an accuracy of 84.7% on a comprehensive set of education and training video data.

Reducing parental anxiety using a family based intervention for youth mental health : a randomized controlled trial

This paper presents findings on parent anxiety and attachment relationship style from the Deakin Family Options (DFO) pilot study, a randomized controlled pilot study comparing a family-based treatment (BEST Plus), versus a youth only treatment (CBT) versus a group who received both of these treatments (COMBINED). Eligible participants were families with a young person (aged 12 - 25 years) with a high prevalence mental health problem. Youth from participating families scored in the clinical or subclinical range for depression, anxiety and/or substance misuse symptoms on standardized measures during the initial assessment. The collected sample was drawn from regional and urban centers in Victoria, Australia and allocated to treatment condition using a simple randomization procedure (parallel design). It was hypothesized that families receiving the BEST Plus would experience greater reductions in youth and parent mental health symptoms, and improved parent-child relationships, compared with those in the CBT condition. This paper describes and discusses changes in parent anxiety and parent attachment, according to whether the parent participated in a treatment (BEST Plus) or did not (NONBEST Plus). Participants were blind to the study hypotheses. In total 71 parent participants returned pre data and were allocated to a treatment group. In this paper, data from parent participants who completed pre and post measures (n = 48) and pre, post, and 6-month follow-up measures (n = 28) on anxiety and attachment were analyzed by group (BEST Plus versus NONBEST Plus). The results of this study suggest that parent anxiety decreased significantly more following parent involvement in a group treatment, than for parents that did not receive treatment. Unexpectedly, avoidant attachment increased in the no treatment group, but remained relatively stable following the BEST Plus group. There were no significant findings in relation to compulsive traits and anxious attachment. These findings are discussed in light of the study limitations.